The present invention relates to apparatus for the forming of strands from moldable confectionary substance.
More particularly, the invention relates to an apparatus for forming strands from moldable confectionary substance such as, for example, chocolate or nougat mass, caramel, corcant, hard sugar or the like, or mixtures of such masses with nuts, almonds and other materials.
Such masses are frequently shaped into individual pieces of bar-shaped configuration, rectangular configuration or of quadratic configuration. To accomplish this it was heretofor necessary to pour the confectionary substance in flowable form into a set of molds, and to let it harden therein prior to unmolding. Self-evidently, this is time consuming and therefore expensive; in addition, the type and shape of final article that could be produced was always strictly dependent upon the available molds.
It is, however, also known from the prior art to form strands of such substances by passing these substances through an extruder, conical roller sets, strand presses or the like; these strands were subsequently subdivided into individual pieces. Here, also, the confectionary substances were cooled in batches and only thereafter converted to strands which could be later subdivided. Again, this is time consuming and expensive because of the batchwise operation and because only a single strand could be produced at a time. A proposal was made in German Published Application OS No. 2,540,613 according to which a pair of cooperating rotating rollers were used one of which has in its circumference a set of circumferentially continuous grooves whereas the other has a smooth surface and presses the moldable confectionary substance into the grooves to form strands. Problems occur with this construction in the filling of the grooves with the confectionary substance and subsequently in the release of the strands from the grooves, because the confectionary substance was not pressed sufficiently into the grooves and residues of the substance formed next to the groove which were very difficult to remove. The product strands were irregular and of non-uniform density, leading to fluctuations in the weight of the final articles into which the strands were subdivided and to an aesthetically displeasing appearance of the finished products.